


The Savage Heart

by AndreaLyn



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Romance Novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24963673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: The wildly popular Harlequin Series (a series of bodice ripper paperback romances) just might be James T. Kirk's favorite selection of literature - not that he'd ever let anyone outside of the Harlequin Book Club know that little fact.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 16
Kudos: 73





	The Savage Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This crack was cowritten with [8611](http://www.archiveofourown.org/tags/author:8611)!

_"And what is Mr. Kensington like?” Fiona enquires one afternoon. She and Annabelle are enjoying a spare moment out on the porch between Annabelle’s studies and Fiona’s duties. She knows soon she will have to get up and start helping with dinner (when really she’d rather be repairing the carriage) and dinner is an elaborate affair tonight, especially since Mr. Kensington is finally returning from his business in London.  
  
“He is an absolute terror,” Annabelle pronounces with great fortitude. “If his brother were not my tutor, I would never come round to visit.”  
  
“Well, and I am here,” Fiona reminds her.  
  
“Of course! Dear friend, I did not mean it that way.” Annabelle reaches across the table to take her hand.  
  
“I know!” Fiona assures her. “But do tell me more about Mr. Kensington.”  
  
“Well…” Annabelle gives in with a sigh and shuts her book, turning to Fiona. “He is a strapping man, I guess you could afford him that. He is his brother’s junior by three years, and he has hair that’s as boring as a wheat field in July.”  
  
“What does that even mean?” Fiona looks cross.  
  
“Trust me, he is no one of consequence,” Annabelle assures Fiona, although there is a bit of color blooming on her cheekbones. “Although he does have the most wonderful eyes. They are the color of the clear sky.”  
  
“Ohhh!” Fiona leans across the table. “And does he dress well? What of his profession?”  
  
“Of course, and I suppose he is a gentleman in profession. Possibly not so much in temperament,” Annabelle huffs. “In fact, he can be rather improper.”  
  
“Well, he is a man of many comforts,” Fiona reminds her, and Annabelle sighs._  
  
\---  
  
Deep under James T. Kirk’s bed lies three illicit items that no one should know about under pain of being transported down to a planet the likes of Delta-Vega. One is his stack of pornography that he’s had since he was a child, one is a letter from his mother detailing how very proud of him she is, and the third item is a worn and ragged copy of _The Savage Heart_ from the very reputable and productive Harlequin series.  
  
It’s a moving story, not that Jim has ever said as much to anyone, written by the Sisters Grimm. Try as Jim might, he’s never found any trace of where these women are from, but he has half a mind to track them down across the edges of the galaxy. They write some of the most poetic turns of phrase and show just how women expect to be loved. It’s helped Jim in more than one bind on the planet’s surface.  
  
He has a full copy of the library on his PADD and enjoys reading the conquests of the Orion slave-girl and her Highlander Prince. There’s a particularly naughty story about a nurse being swept away by space pirates only to be rescued by a first officer of a Federation ship with a dark past. He’s seen Uhura with a copy of one of his other favorites about a female explorer trapped in the heart of Africa with only her family’s diamond and her wealth of language at her disposal. In that story, Princess Zee’er is only rescued by a traveling pilot of the world named Amelia and they fall in love near Victoria Falls, kissing under the full moon with only a swashbuckling sword to protect them.  
  
The tone switches between books, so Jim figures there are actually two sisters in on this joint venture and he always makes sure he has a standing appointment to have the newest book sent to him.  
  
Though this time around, he wants to be there at the first release.  
  
It’s a long-awaited sequel to _The Savage Heart_.  
  
\---  
  
_Fiona watches the man carefully as he comes into the kitchen, laughing in a most dashing way. He has Annabelle on his arm, and Fiona finds it most undignified that a man of Kensington’s status would bring a proper lady such as Annabelle, unchaperoned even, into the kitchen. They should be in the parlor at least, possibly discussing the latest in this morning’s papers or Annabelle’s studies on the disease of the Indies. She catches Fiona’s eyes and purses her lips, rolling her eyes, and Fiona suppresses a giggle and she returns to sorting apples into bins.  
  
“And who is this delightful young woman?” Kensington asks, as he makes sure to sweep Annabelle safely through the swinging door.  
  
“I am – I am just the cook’s assistant, Sir,” Fiona stammers as she feels her neck flush. She had not seen Mr. Kensington last night, and now, as she looks on him for the first time, she finds that Annabelle’s description of the man did him little justice. He looks as if he were chiseled from marble by the Great Masters themselves.  
  
“Nonsense!” Annabelle quickly steps to Fiona’s side, placing a hand over her’s and looking quite fierce. “Mr. Kensington, this is my greatest friend and confidant, Fiona Clanachan.”  
  
“Well I am quite pleased to make your acquaintance.” Fiona is sure his eyes actually twinkle in the light. “What do you do around my brother’s house?”  
  
“I just work in the kitchen,” Fiona assures him before returning to the apples.  
  
“Oh, Fiona, you sell yourself short!” Annabelle pronounces. “Fiona is an absolute genius with those new horseless carriages. Go on, tell him!”  
  
“Well, I do find them rather interesting,” Fiona admits. “But it is not proper to speak of such things in current company.”  
  
“Nonsense, your current company is your greatest friend and just a bored Englishman, is it not?” Kensington teases, and Fiona has to steel herself against swooning right there and then. “Do tell.”  
  
“I suppose – well really. Well see, the thing is that of all the modern inventions-“  
  
And then Fiona is off, and Annabelle sits by her side ushering her on, and not once does Mr. Kensington look bored or put off._  
  
\---  
  
Jim’s never loved a book so much as he’s loved this one. Yeah, he knows it’s not something he’d admit to the guys because he’s pretty sure Riley’s still laughing about the fact that Jim had cried during that old showing of _Steel Magnolias_ and it’s not fair because that’s a classic from centuries ago and Jim had just had a rough couple of days was all. The main character’s a businessman from London who moves to the South and turns the small town on its head. He’s dashing and charming and runs his business in Georgia with a firm and fair hand. He’s beautiful and all the women in the town want him, but he delights in acting as though they can all have him.  
  
Except his heart is stolen by the one woman who will never have him. Or so everyone thinks until Chapter Six in which young Annabelle Delilah Hartsfield confides in her dear friend Fiona about her growing feelings for young John Trent Kensington. Their illicit love affair continues unrequited until everything comes to a head.  
  
And then, well, Jim just pities men who don’t read novels like this because fifty pages of some of the dirtiest, heated, racy pornography follows and John Kensington gets his hands up a corset, down a petticoat, and into Jim’s heart.  
  
\---  
  
_“Ms. Hartsfield, Annabelle – you must understand,” John is pleading with her at this point, and she turns her back on him, tossing her hair over her shoulder.  
  
“You should not have come to see me like this, Mr. Kensington,” Annabelle says viciously, caring not for how he perceives her. “You may live in this house, but it gives you no right to walk in on me in such an indecent fashion!”  
  
“I knocked!”  
  
“You did not!”  
  
“Well at least put on a dressing gown and face me, so that we can have this conversation like human beings!”  
  
Annabelle quickly gathers up her robe from the back of her vanity chair, wrapping it around herself quite tightly before turning back around. John longs to reach out and be allowed to tangle his hands in her gorgeous curls – they’re the color of sweet chocolate, and they frame her gorgeous complexion like they were designed by the angels.  
  
“What is it which you wish to discuss? I hardly think you’ve come to see me to argue the finer points of all the ways in which a man can have his leg broken or amputated.” Annabelle tilts her chin up, offering him a frosty glare.  
  
“That is most garish of you, Annabelle,” John chastises.  
  
“It is my field of study, is it not? Perhaps if you saw fit to choose one you would be more willing to discuss academia.”  
  
“I have other things to attend to that do not allow me to dally on lessons that have no bearing on my life.”  
  
“Watch your words, Mr. Kensington, if not for things such as the classics this world surely would have long ago been destroyed.”  
  
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”  
  
They seethe at each other for a moment before John sighs and lets his shoulders slump.  
  
“Also your posture is most deplorable.”  
  
“Annabelle!”_  
  
\---  
  
There’s going to be a sequel to make up for the fact that the novel ends up something of a cliffhanger. John and Annabelle manage to put aside their differences (though not their sharp tongues), but John’s business is under the government’s eye and he might need to move his business back to London, a place that Annabelle swears she will not go. Jim figures there’s _got_ to be more than a handful of scenes in the book that’s coming up that he could definitely try and memorize.  
  
Not that he has the first one memorized or anything (maybe just a couple of his favorite scenes).  
  
The turn of events that lead to someone else on the crew discovering his predilection for the Grimm Sister books are when he’s discovered trying to hide a copy of ‘The Captain’s Mistress’ on his PADD while reading. He hadn’t meant to bring it with him to the observation deck, but he’s at the part where Jennifer is confessing that everything she’s ever done in her servant’s life under the Captain has been done in the hopes that he will notice her more above all the others. It’s one of Mary Grimm’s sole ventures and she’s definitely knocked this one out of the park. Captain Moynahan has got his hands in Jennifer’s admirable locks of gold and that’s when he feels a tap on his shoulder.  
  
“Captain,” Uhura is smarmily teasing. “What are you reading?”  
  
“What? This? The Galaxy’s Top Five Sexy Women and Alien Species,” Jim scoffs, trying desperately to hide the fact that Captain Moynahan is currently undressing Jennifer with slow and cautious hands, kissing the fervent sunset-pink tinged dusk of her nipple.  
  
Uhura leans further over his shoulder and brings it back up. “It’s _The Captain’s Mistress_ and you’re two chapters behind where I am,” she informs him, taking the seat opposite and bringing out her own PADD as she flashes Jim a confident smile. “Captain, if I’d known your predilection for actual novels of quality and not just porn, I’d have invited you into our little reader’s circle sooner.”  
  
“You have a reader’s circle?”  
  
“Mm, me, Janice, Christine, Henderson from Security, Chekov…”  
  
“…Hend…Cupcake?” Jim clarifies.  
  
“His personal favorite is The King’s Bodyguard, the one where he falls in love with the slave-girl and has to battle for her life against the evil priest from afar,” Uhura confirms. “We mostly just meet and talk about the books. Nothing in depth, but we compare favorites and techniques. If you’d like to come, you’re welcome to join us.”  
  
“But Spock won’t be there,” Jim says warily. “The last thing I need is to be told my preference of bodice-ripping to corset-cutting is ‘most illogical, Captain’. Or worse, ‘fascinating’.”  
  
“Spock isn’t invited,” Uhura assures Jim with a soft laugh. “You should join us, Jim. We’re your kind.”  
  
\---  
  
_“We should not ever be doing this!” Annabelle hisses through clenched teeth, backing up so that she can close the door with her shoulder.  
  
“Why not?” John asks, reaching down to carefully let her tight bun out, letting her curls tumble down over her shoulders like a waterfall. She swats at his hand, looking most incensed.  
  
“Oh God, John, must I name all the reasons? Your brother is at home, as is his wife, we are _unwed _, may I point that out-“  
  
“And you just saw fit to take the Lord’s name in vain. I suggest we continue in that most sinful and debauched manner.”  
  
He reaches out again, cradling her face in the palm of his hand, and her fierce emerald eyes offer no yield.  
  
“I’ll sweep you off your feet if I must,” he assures her.  
  
“Like what, some common… pirate!” She spits at him.  
  
“Pirate? Ms. Hartsfield, what have you been reading lately?” He asks as he runs a thumb over one of her luscious lips, and she lets her eyes flutter closed, sucking in a little breath, clutching a hand to her chest.  
  
“Many a text on the discussion of things that you would find too _garish _, I’m sure. Also, if we are going to do this, you must get me out of this corset before I_ die _.”  
  
“You are most dramatic, Annabelle,” John whispers against her lips, and Annabelle sags against the door, her hands coming up to wrap around John’s shoulders of their own volition. He kisses her then, and, in a most unlady like fashion, she hitches up her skirts and drapes one leg over John’s hip, her ankles very clearly on display.  
  
“I am many other things too,” Annabelle gasps as John reaches up to undo the top clasp on her dress, caressing her neck.  
  
“Really,” John murmurs, slowly running a hand up the leg Annabelle has thrown nearly around his waist. “I think you can edit that list to include ‘quite flexible’.”  
  
“Don’t be so vulgar!” Annabelle finally kisses John, her sinful lips opening under his. John is working his way under Annabelle’s skirts when the sounds of footsteps issues from the hallway. Annabelle squeaks, shoving John away and frantically trying to collect her skirts and button up her collar as John hastily jumps back, smoothing out his shirt.  
  
“-so as I was saying, the spread of this Yellow Fever in the tropics is really quite a fascination subject-“ John takes up just as Lord Kensington opens up the door.  
  
“As I’ve been telling you this past bit,” Annabelle agrees, slightly out of breath. “Samuel!”  
  
“Hullo Annabelle! I didn’t realize you’d come around to visit,” Samuel smiles at her. “May I borrow my brother for a moment?”  
  
“Of course!” Annabelle hurries from the room, realizing belatedly that her hair is still unbound, and that John still has her hairclip in his breast pocket._  
  
\---  
  
This is how Jim finds himself in the midst of a heated discussion with Gaila about _The Savage Heart_ on a Tuesday evening while he flings his paper copy around like he’s going to start a fight with it.  
  
“I think she doesn’t really love him!” Gaila’s shouting back at him.  
  
“How can you say that! She’s just not like other women of her time, she doesn’t understand the way her heart works. The setting and the theme isn’t the savage, it’s her own damaged heart from being scorned in love before by Joseph!” Jim argues. “She loves John with all her heart, but she just needs to learn how to do it properly!” He doesn’t know why he’s so incensed about this, but the rest of the circle appears to be enjoying it.  
  
Chekov’s even unearthed some popcorn.  
  
“She always snipes him and only wants him for his money and his good looks,” Gaila says definitively. “Once he gets older and she realizes what he’s really like with all that brash arrogance and whim, she won’t want him.”  
  
“She will too!” Jim argues.  
  
“And I suppose you’re an expert on true love.”  
  
“I’ve read every book that Mary and Lenore Grimm have ever written,” Jim says, tipping his chin up with superiority. “And _The Savage Heart_ is the most romantic, most incredible, most genuine, heart-rending tale of two people in love I have ever seen!” With that, he sits back down, his point made. Chekov makes sure to applaud for him, citing, ‘wery good, Keptin!’  
  
Gaila doesn’t have much of a comeback for that, but it might be due to the way Uhura is signaling her to stop.  
  
“So what do you think the sequel will be about?” Christine murmurs, her gaze flicking up from the chapter.  
  
“It has to be about whether she goes with him to London, doesn’t it?” Jim points out. _She has to, she has to, she has to follow him, if she doesn’t, what’s John going to do, he can’t be in London without her._  
  
“I suppose we’ll know soon enough,” Janice says brightly and they go back to reading the assigned book for the evening: The Handmaiden’s Secret Love with the Artist’s Wife.  
  
\---  
  
_John is not quite sure what he did to deserve this fiery woman in his bed, but he sees no reason to complain. He rolls onto his side, further disturbing the incredibly mussed covers, and offers her a grin, to which she shakes her head and rolls her eyes in return.  
  
“You know, your eye roll may be known in several counties, but it is not threatening at all, especially while at the moment I have a most magnificent view of your breasts.” John winks and Annabelle glares, rolling over on to her stomach. “Are you going to ignore me?”  
  
“I can’t very well ignore you, can I? I appear to be in your bed,” Annabelle snaps.  
  
“I know, it’s a very good place to be.” He spreads out, mirroring Annabelle’s position, and reaches out to trail his fingertips down the curve of her succulent back, her skin gorgeously pale.  
  
“Your ego astounds me,” Annabelle mutters.  
  
“We are in good company then, because your caustic nature astounds me,” John teases.  
  
“It’s the result of many years of careful cultivation,” Annabelle assures him with another glare.  
  
“Oh Annabelle, we just did wickedly amazing things and you see fit to sulk?”  
  
“I do see fit to.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because you _seduced _me!”  
  
“On the contrary, I believe it was you who took me to bed.”  
  
Annabelle thinks it wise to not reply to this.  
  
“Annabelle, I actually have something to discuss with you,” John sighs as he sits up, his back to the headboard. He gestures for her to join him, and she does so eventually with a decent amount of reluctance, tucked against his side. He presses a kiss to the top of her curls, twirling them around his fingers as he has longed to do for so long.  
  
“So, what is it that you wish to discuss?” Annabelle sighs, pressing a hand to his chest.  
  
“Pardon me if I appear forward –“  
  
“- may I remind you we’re currently disrobed in your bed –“  
  
“Very true. The point being, Ms. Hartsfield, I feel as if I finally may have found a way to put an end to my days of being a sad, petulant, roaming bachelor.”  
  
“You are indeed petulant. But then, many people say I am as well.”  
  
“Which is exactly why we belong together. Annabelle Hartsfield, would you do me the very great honor of accompanying me back to London and accepting my hand in marriage?”  
  
Annabelle pulls back, her mouth agape. Well, that was not the reaction John had been going for, exactly, but at least she hadn’t slapped him.  
  
Which Annabelle then proceeds to do and scurry from the bed, wrapping a sheet around her body.  
  
“You – you!” Annabelle cries, pacing the room. “You!”  
  
“Yes, me! Was that slap really necessary?”  
  
“Indeed, Mr. Kensington!”  
  
“Annabelle, please-“  
  
“No! No, you listen, John!” Annabelle stops, her hair a disaster from being ravished and her shoulders squared. “I cannot go with you to London, so I very certainly cannot marry you!”  
  
“Why can’t you go to London?”  
  
“Because this is my home! I have my father’s plantation to attend to, I have Fiona to have tea with, I have your brother to tutor me-“  
  
“You can have a new home in London! With me! Am I not the love of your life?”  
  
“John!” She stops her pacing, looking absolutely scandalized. “Having… relations… with each other does not mean we are in love!”  
  
“And yet you find yourself in love with me?”  
  
Annabelle sputters, because of course she is deeply, deeply in love with one John T. Kensington, but she would never utter such an oath aloud.  
  
“No! And I could never just up and leave! Besides!” Annabelle resumes her pacing, launching into a tirade. “Do you have any idea what sea travel is like?”  
  
“I do. It is quite safe.”  
  
“Do not even dare pander to me! It is an absolute horror, it’s danger and disease and darkness and horrible storms and any number of things that are quite deadly! It is a horrid way to travel, and you never know when a tidal wave may crop up and drown you in your seat!” Annabelle finishes, chest heaving, her hair spilling over her face. She really looks rather crazed.  
  
“Ah, well then,” John says, quite at a loss for words. “Does that mean no?”  
  
“Of course it means no, you horrid cretin!”_  
  
\---  
  
The sequel to _The Savage Heart_ is all that Jim’s hoped for and more. He’s informed Spock that he’s not to be disturbed the moment his PADD chirps with the announcement that the text has been downloaded and he’s eagerly at his desk to read it, hoping that no issues will crop up on the ship. He prays that Bones is out of the stressed mood he’s been in for the last few days, because it’s been ridiculous.  
  
It takes Jim three hours and forty-one minutes to read to the end and he’s got tissues to wipe away at his cheeks. It’s the happy ending that they deserve and after that, he has no issue standing behind his argument to Gaila about how truly in love they are.  
  
The crew starts acting differently around him after the novel.  
  
People whisper about him and point, they get out Bones’ name, and then blush when Jim looks directly at him. He’s not sure what all the fuss is about because it’s not like Jim’s done anything this time around. He’s wearing all his clothes and he’s pretty sure his face is the way it’s supposed to be. That doesn’t stop the whole crew from treating him oddly for _days_.  
  
The next reading circle starts with silence. Jim opens his book eagerly, but everyone else is just staring at him. Cupcake and Uhura even look a little sympathetic.  
  
“Well?” Jim asks eagerly. “Let’s start!”  
  
“…Jim?” Uhura says warily. “Did you read the sequel?”  
  
“I did, it was amazing, wasn’t it?” he raves.  
  
“And you didn’t think that it was vaguely reminiscent of anything?”  
  
“…No.”  
  
They all exchange glances and Jim wants to know just what’s so strange about that. Eventually they stop looking at him as if they want to pat him over the head and give him milk and they get to reading the book.  
  
\---  
  
_John had received the letter some three weeks prior, written in Annabelle’s perfunctory handwriting.  
  
_Dear Mr. Kensington –  
  
I am well aware that we did not part on the most magnificent of terms. I apologize for any stress my behavior may have caused, although I found myself most confused with the way the events of the summer had played out. If you find it in due course to forgive me, let me inform you that I have booked passage to Southampton, arriving the second week of September. Attached are my travel plans in greater depth. My mother has requested to be present for the wedding.  
  
\- Yours (unfortunately),  
Annabelle Hartsfield _  
  
John smiles in the bright sun, the letter tucked neatly into the interior pocket of his jacket. People are slowly disembarking from the ship as trunks and luggage are unloaded, carefully lowered to the ground. He hears Annabelle before he actually sees her.  
  
“No, I can handle my own bag, thank you very much.” Her snappish tone makes John smile, and he strides towards the sound, looping a hand around Annabelle’s waist before she can turn and greet him.  
  
“What are you-!” Annabelle’s rant is stopped by John kissing her rather firmly. When he pulls back he’s grinning like a loon, he is rather sure. “You are so improper! You can’t just go around kissing women in public you aren’t married to!”  
  
“Ah, but we are engaged,” John points out as he snatches her bags before she can. “By the way, welcome to England.”  
  
“I quite detest it so far,” Annabelle tells him bluntly, and he laughs.  
  
“You will learn to love it, I am sure,” he says as they start walking. Annabelle fiddles with her hat before sighing and falling into step with him.  
  
“Well, I seem to have formed a wretched habit of falling in love with totally unlovable things, so maybe England has hope,” Annabelle tells him before looping her arm in his.  
  
“I will be cheering England on,” he assures her.  
  
“Of course you will,” she says blithely before she shocks him and pulls him around a corner, out of the main road. “Now, I believe we have a month of kisses to make up for.”  
  
“I do very much enjoy the way you think, Ms. Hartsfield,” he grins rapaciously at her, wrapping an arm around her waist. She does the proper thing and puts a bit of swooning into her actions.  
  
“The sentiment,” she kisses him, “is mutual, Mr. Kensington.”_  
  
\---  
  
Jim is reading his dog-eared copy of _The Savage Heart_ for the hundredth time when he hears the commotion at his door. “You can’t tell him!” Scotty is protesting. “After all this time and all the money, you can’t just go ahead and tell him! It’s been years and you even picked up the slack for me while I was banished to that rock of ice. Why now?”  
  
“Because it’s gone on goddamn long enough,” Bones is growling. “Jim, I’m coming in!” That’s all the warning before he storms inside the room and doesn’t even give Jim enough time to hide his copy of the book. The look on Bones face isn’t to be believed. He’s incredulous and furious and he doesn’t stop wandering inside until he’s right in Jim’s face.  
  
“Bones, what the hell?”  
  
“I’m Lenore mother _fucking_ Grimm, you absolute moron, now fucking rip me out of my metaphorical corset,” he demands sharply. He leans down and grabs Jim’s copy out of his hands, flinging it across the room to Jim’s noise of severe shock and discontent. “I fucking wrote the second novel when it didn’t pierce your thick skull that it was _us_ the first time around.”  
  
“…Annabelle?”  
  
“Well, I couldn’t write about a handsome doctor being a southern belle, now could I?”  
  
“Oh, you could have. And you should. But uh, next time,” Jim is insisting, already pressing Bones up against the nearest bulkhead wall and shoving a hand down Bones’ pants and kissing him desperately. He makes damn sure no one is about to interrupt him because he’s got a lot of book pages he’s got to make into reality.  
  
Starting with the scene in which Annabelle takes things over and decides to ride young John Kensington until he loses all sense of dignified gentlemanly behavior.


End file.
